Portabellos with Apple Sausage Stuffing

I know.  It has been a really really long time since my last post.  I've been doing better and cooking again but I haven't been making anything new hence no posts.  But I got creative yesterday and it came out fantastic so here we go....

I've managed to find a winter farmer's market here in the Northeast.  They have several meat vendors and a bunch of veg vendors with one even selling a variety of fresh mushrooms.  I picked up some sweet Italian sausage from my favorite meat vendor and an absolutely HUGE mushroom cap.  The herbs were from one of the other vendors and I've had them out on the table drying.

Use one regular sized portabello per person or if you find huge ones you can split it with someone.  Use 1/4-1/2lb of meat per person depending upon appetites and affinity for meat.  I'm fine with 1/4 lb for myself but hubs tends to go for 1/2lb serving.

Ingredients
serves 2

1/2-1lb of sweet sausage
1 large or 2 normal sized portabello mushrooms (with stems if possible)
1 granny apple
1 large stalk of celery
1/2 a medium onion
1 clove of garlic
1t rosemary leaves
1t thyme leaves
2-3 sage leaves
1t celtic sea salt
generous pinch of pepper
1T ghee, lard or tallow for frying
1-2T olive oil
1 small egg slightly beaten
1/2c almond flour

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Chop onion, celery and apple into small pieces.
3. Peel mushroom cap.  Remove stem and chop stem into small pieces and add to veg.  Scrape out gills and add to veg leaving the cap itself intact.
4. Crush or dice garlic finely.
5. Remove sausage meat from casings and dice into small pieces.  (scissors work well for this)
6. If herbs are dried grind together or if fresh break into fine pieces.
7. Add fat to pan and saute sausage meat until all pink is gone.  Remove from pan and set aside in a bowl.  Do not drain fat from pan.
8. Add vegetables and garlic to pan. Add herbs, salt and pepper.  Add more fat if needed and saute until soft.  Add to bowl with meat.  
9. Drain any liquid off meat.  
10. Add flour and egg and mix well.  You could put this in a food processor if you like but I prefer mine chunky.
11. Brush mushroom caps with olive oil.  Place topside down in baking dish.  Pile stuffing into caps.
12. Bake for 20-30mins until it has nice browned bits on top.

Variations on the theme:

• Use acorn squash instead of mushroom caps.  Split and deseed squash.  Paint interior with olive oil and bake at 350F for 45-60mins until soft and easily pierced with a knife.  Stuff with sausage and bake as directed above.
• Skip the mushroom and serve over rice.  Bake sausage mix in any baking dish until browned while making rice of choice.